


The Big Book of What Not To Do

by Jenett



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:18:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5461217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenett/pseuds/Jenett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cassandra Cillian collaborates with herself on a guide of what not to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Big Book of What Not To Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Revieloutionne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revieloutionne/gifts).



37\. While asking certain demons how many licks to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop actually works as a distraction ~~I cannot believe Ezekiel tried that and isn't dead. Again.~~ , it does not work on vampires. You need rice for vampires. Possibly also poppyseeds. 

Note to self: add rice to my bag. More useful if we get caught somewhere we need food. 

38\. British folk songs about the dangers of the greenwood never spell out why. Take precautions against elf-shot. Elf-shot hurts. Also, Mr. Jenkins finds the necessary remedies extremely undignified. 

39\. Indian yellow paint may be necessary when restoring 19th century paintings, but do not believe any of the stories about cows and mangos being involved you might hear. The original source was a demonic whale. 

If you need more and have access to The Library, it's in Pseudo-Cetacean Room B, cabinet 54, which is the one that smells horrible. More horrible than the rest of the room. For other historical pigment needs, see the Unconventional Supplies store list at the back. 

_There's a perfectly good recipe for a elf-shot remedy. Feverfew, red nettles and waybread. Also, some of us don't have access to stores as such._

I know you don't have stores. But whoever is a Librarian here after me might. I'm writing where you can read, not just to you. 

Mr. Jenkins insists on salamander scales. Where have you been? 

_Oh, here and there. If your Mr. Jenkins is going to be a stuck in the mud old-fashioned idiot who doesn't realise that we have better techniques now we're past the Crusades, that's his loss. ~~Just because it's Morgan who discovered it.~~_

_Also, if you're writing for other people too, I suppose I'd better watch what I say_

_40\. Anyone who tries to project their flawed memories of what Dungeons and Dragons books say about dragons onto the realities of the situation should be ignored. Green dragons can be lured by nightshades and most things in the Papaveraceae family, blue dragons are susceptible to illusion magic, and red dragons dislike butterflies. Aggressively._

Butterflies? You have to be teasing. You know this book's no good if it's not accurate. 

_Tell me just how many dragons you've fought, then_

Fought? None. Met? Technically, I'm sure about one. 

_Technically doesn't count, Miss Mathematics._

It didn't say very much, and it was mostly asleep? And there was Mr. Drake. 

_Dragons are not for talking to._

Different world. 

Sorry. Got to go. May be a bit. 

*** 

_Things I find annoying about my life, version 72:_  
1) People bowing.  
2) The dragons.  
3) Lamia's theories about magical cosmology.  
4) People not writing back. 

_41\. Sentient mulch is a bad thing. Worse than that. Do not make mulch out of sentient plants. Do not eat sentient plants. Just avoid the sentient plants entirely. Alternately, apply salt, vinegar, or boiling water to the roots, burn the dead plants to ash in a firepit, scatter the ashes at sea, and avoid planting anything else there for at least three years. Maybe four._

_Why aren't you writing back yet? You know I get bored. There's not exactly much to do here._

***  
Sorry. You know I've got missions.

_Some people get missions. Other people worry about them._

Well, I'm back now. 

42\. DO NOT MESS WITH THE SAMPO. HONESTLY. JUST GO THE OTHER WAY IF ANYBODY BRINGS IT UP. 

_What's a sampo? You know I don't have the library you do._

_That joke never gets old._

Did you read what I said? Honestly. Besides, no one's really sure. I mean, I'm not even really sure, and I was there. It's a thing. It has power. Don't go near it. Just don't. 

_You're babbling. Again. Go do some math, it will make you feel better._

_Are you sulking? You're not writing back._

*** 

_Why is the book covered in coffee this morning?_

Flying pigs.

_Excuse me?_

We had a problem with literalized metaphor. It got rather messy.

_That doesn't explain the coffee. Also, it is deeply wrong and selfish to make the book smell like coffee when I can't get coffee, because you know what my world's like._

Okay. 

That's probably true. The coffee, I mean. 

Make it up to you? Truth? Dare? Research? 

_Truth. So, what's it like to have other librarians?_

First time you've picked truth, and you ask that? Okay. Give me a minute. 

It's good. I don't always like them, and we can argue a lot. It gets us in trouble. But they know things I don't know and that matters. 

You get Stone going on art history or architecture, and I can see the proportions and how they work, but not the other things, the pigments, why the color's like that, or what something symbolizes or the brush strokes. Well, usually not, there's this one artist who does very geometric ones? 

And Ezekiel is really good at what he does, even if he does say so himself. I know a lot more about cryptography and password techniques than I used to. 

And Baird's just so competent. 

_Guardian, not Librarian. And competent, is it? That's an unspecific adjective for you. She's more than just competent._

True. And there's Mr. Jenkins, who isn't a Librarian either. 

I don't know about Mr. Carsen. We haven't really seen him enough for me to be sure? 

Anyway, Ezekiel and Stone can both be really amazing or really annoying. Sometimes a sentence apart. And they're both bossy and so certain of themselves sometimes. But on the other hand, they respect what I do, and that's more than most people do. 

_You keep putting down what you do._

You have enough of my head to know why. It's just complicated. 

*** 

Things I find annoying about my life, #322  
1\. Ezekiel disappearing in a room full of creepy architecture.  
2\. Baird trying to protect me (variation 83, visible apparitions)  
3\. Stone recognizing some super secret symbol and not telling the rest of us about it or what it means.  
4\. How Mr. Carsen just swans in and assumes he knows all of what's going on, when he doesn't. 

_Why do you have more annoying things in your life than I do? Also, no repeats. You said the same thing about Ezekiel in #276._

The thing about Ezekiel in #276 was him in a room of creepy statues. This is him in a room of creepy architecture. It turns out there's actually a difference. 

Also, your lists always include people bowing. 

_Different people. There are a lot of people bowing. How is architecture creepy?_

Stone has a lecture on it. Covers the Bibliothèque Nationale, and this entrance to a library that Michelangelo did, and a few other places. Not the obvious ones, like ossuaries, that's a different category of creepy. 

Back in a bit. 

*** 

_I suppose if anyone has catalogued different kinds of creepy, it would be you lot. Did you ever get further on your catalog of mysterious houses?_

Some. Ugh. Swamp monsters. Several kinds of swamp monsters. Also slime. And no, on the catalog. Busy. 

_You got slime on the book. Make it go away_

Sorry. 

_Now there's a damp spot on the book_

It'll dry. The coffee did. 

*** 

_Are you there?_

Maybe. 

_Schrödinger's Librarian?_

Don't even talk to me about poison gas. 

_That's not how it ends, and you know it._

***

_Hello? Are you there? It's been a day._

_Two days_

_Three. Four. Five._

I don't like thinking about it. And it's different for me, and for you. It has to be. 

_I healed myself. You won't._

Can't. 

_Could._

If I were a different person, and that's death too. 

_There are days I really don't understand you._

If you did, we'd be the same person, in the same world, and we're not. Q.E.D. 

_~~Don't you want to live? No, sorry. Let me try that again.~~ Isn't living longer the thing everyone wants?_

I thought I did, and I betrayed people, and they took me back, and I'm never going to do that to them again. 

_You're not being logical._

"Logic has made me hated in the world." Peter Abelard. 

_When you start quoting medieval philosophers, there's no hope of a sensible conversation with you._

*** 

I've been thinking about this book. About putting a note in the front. 

_What do you want it to say? Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate?_

Someone's cynical this morning. There is hope. There's always hope. Knowledge and learning and possibility. I've seen so many amazing things. Some horrible ones, but so many amazing ones. 

_You don't talk enough about that._

Neither do you. 

_Your world has more of the wonderful. And the hope. Considering._

*** 

To whoever reads this book: 

This is our collection of what not to do. It is our collection of what you should do. 

It is about magic and science. Partnership. Dragons. Libraries. Books. Places of refuge and amazing challenges. An awful lot of running sometimes. 

It is about hope. About changing and learning and growing. It is about being the same and being different, and what that means. 

It is about life. 

It doesn't have all the answers. Yet. Add your own. 

Cassandra and Cassandra.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> My thanks to my usual excellent beta, who will get named after reveals. (She is responsible for the references to the pigs, the sampo, and some other excellent structural commentary.)
> 
> The prompt for this was a request for Cassandra and her AU self to meet. The collaborative book is my solution to the fact that Season 2 (which hadn't starting airing when requests were due) implies that people meeting their AU selves is extremely problematic. 
> 
> Some references, for the curious:  
> \- [Elfshot](http://www.heorot.dk/stitch-i-txt.html)  
> \- [Indian Yellow pigment](http://toxicgraphix.blogspot.com/2011/02/indian-yellow.html)  
> \- [The Sampo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampo)  
> \- [Scary libraries](http://www.exurbe.com/?p=1992)  
> And of course, the Italian quoted is Dante, from the _Inferno_ , or "Abandon all hope, you who enter here."


End file.
